Making Practice Perfect
McConnell Golf emphasizes short-game practice facilities
While gathered for the 2020 Wyndham Championship at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, North Carolina, the PGA Tour competitors raved about the club’s new short-game practice area.
“A-plus-plus,” says longtime Wyndham Championship Tournament Director Mark Brazil, grading the new facility, which is adjacent to Sedgefield’s stately, Tudor-style clubhouse.
The two-acre practice area — designed by Steve Wenzloff, Senior Vice President of Design Services for the PGA Tour — made its debut during the spectator-free Wyndham event in August. Wenzloff, who also updated the short-game area at TPC Sawgrass in 2016, incorporated ShotLink technology to review data from every Sedgefield green complex.
Providing Sedgefield with five times more practice space, the new area features two Ultradwarf Bermuda greens that measure about 3,600 square feet apiece, along with a trio of bunkers, giving players the option of working on greenside bunker shots as well as 30- to 40-yard bunker shots.
The expanded space also features closely mowed areas off the greenside slopes and shoulders, where players can focus on putting the ball up the hill or practice a pitch shot up the embankment to a tight pin. The addition gives Sedgefield about 15,000 square feet of short-grass area, allowing a dozen or more players to hit shots from a variety of locations.
Brazil calls the new short-game practice area, which was financed by the tournament, “a huge upgrade for the Tour pros one week a year and for the Sedgefield members 51 weeks a year.”
“This upgrade will definitely help us attract and retain new members,” says Sedgefield’s PGA Director of Golf Rocky Brooks. “The layout and size of our new short-game area afford us the opportunity to work with multiple students [men, women or juniors] at the same time. This is a luxury most clubs don’t have the space for.”
The new amenity is a tremendous asset for Sedgefield Country Club as well as visiting members from other McConnell Golf properties.
“Anytime you give members time to improve their golf games, they’re much more likely to play golf and spend time at the club,” Brooks says.
Sedgefield’s PGA Head Professional Eric Ferguson agrees. “From beginners to advanced players, we’ll now be able to help players execute just about any shot they will see on the golf course,” he says. “For our junior golf programs, it is almost like we have our own two-hole golf course for them to learn on.”
The ability to improve one’s game is crucial to the pure golf experience. Sedgefield’s comprehensive practice facility, including TrackMan radar technology swing analysis, complements the club’s expert instruction from its Class A PGA Professionals.
McConnell Golf has overseen numerous enhancements to its stable of short-game and practice areas at more than two dozen clubs around the Southeast.
“One of the areas McConnell Golf will always focus on is the short game,” says Brian Kittler, McConnell’s VP of Golf Operations. “If you’re playing a McConnell Golf property and you don’t have a good short game, you might be in for a long day.”
Sedgefield’s new upgrade “is about as good as it comes,” Kittler says. “It enhances what we provide, the quality of the venue, not only from the golf course, and service at the clubhouse with food, etc., but practice facilities. Working with John (McConnell), you know that in time, when there’s opportunities to do some upgrades, he’s been willing to invest in the practice and short-game areas at the facilities.”
McConnell Golf performed a significant expansion to the Raleigh Country Club practice area in 2005-06, and golf course architect Kyle Franz has sketched additional plans for potential future upgrades to RCC’s short-game area.
In 2012, McConnell Golf completely redesigned the range and short-game area at the Country Club at Wakefield Plantation in Raleigh, North Carolina — while also modernizing the entire clubhouse — completing McConnell Golf’s trifecta of upgrades to its three Triangle practice facilities, including RCC and Durham’s Treyburn Country Club.
Wakefield’s golf learning center is 1,600 square feet, and includes two indoor-outdoor hitting bays, an indoor putting studio and the latest in game-improvement technology. Each hitting bay is outfitted with video technology and multiple flat-screen TVs, allowing players to monitor their improvement during private instruction. The Wakefield staff uses a Flightscope launch monitor to help members find the right equipment.
Wakefield’s total practice facility measures approximately nine acres, with a teeing ground nearly an acre-and-a-half. The practice chipping green is 4,000 square feet, with a pair of practice bunkers around this green. There are five short-game pins between 75-125 yards for wedge game practice.
Several McConnell Golf properties boasted extensive practice facilities before joining the portfolio, including Old North State Club in New London, North Carolina; Musgrove Mill Golf Club in Clinton, South Carolina; and Holston Hills Country Club in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Other clubs had very minimal practice areas — and McConnell Golf has significantly enhanced these over the years.
“We upgraded The Reserve [Pawleys Island, South Carolina] about 10 years ago and added a short-game facility,” Kittler notes. “There was an open area by the practice facility that wasn't being utilized. Richard Mandell [golf course architect] went in there and created a short-game area, so you can work on your chipping and pitching, bunker shots, the whole nine yards. Just a neat little added touch.”
When the Country Club of Asheville was renovated several years ago, McConnell Golf added a short-game and chipping green to the left of the No. 10 fairway and to the right of the practice range.
“We acquired Providence Country Club in Charlotte and they had a really good short-game area out there behind the clubhouse by the 18 green,” Kittler says. “We converted them over to Bermuda greens. We did the same thing at Brook Valley [Country Club in Greenville, North Carolina], added a little putting green by the first tee and also a chipping green over by the practice facility. Even at the land-locked Cardinal [Greensboro, North Carolina], we were able to do a little bit of improvement there — adding a short-game green by the road.”
One of McConnell Golf’s recent acquisitions, Porters Neck Country Club in Wilmington, North Carolina, possesses what might be the largest hitting tee of any club in the McConnell Golf collection.
“They have a really good, huge hitting tee, a short-game area and a big putting green,” Kittler says. “The neat thing is, there’s some land available. If we ever down the road want to upgrade that area, there’s room to do so. That’s the biggest thing – sometimes golf courses don't have the available land or areas to increase or improve their practice facilities and the short-game area. Luckily, the majority of the places that we’ve had, there’s been room and we’ve been able to make it work.”
McConnell Golf is also focused on incorporating technology and software to aid in teaching and club fittings.
“We’re good right now. We’re just looking to take it to another level,” Kittler says. “The goal is by having these tools, our members will get better and enjoy the game that much more. And because of that, they’ll play more golf. Everything we can do to help members out, is what we try to do.”